Before you decide to take part in the full Ingenuity Impact, please read our Terms and Conditions carefully.
Registration Stage
Eligibility criteria
- Participants can enter as an individual, or a team of no more than four.
Teams will have a lead applicant who will be the main source of contact throughout the process. Please ensure you have agreed who the lead contact will be.
Throughout the 2024-25 Programme, participants must be legally residing within the UK. The exception to this rule is for those who are having to reside in another country due to a study abroad scheme.
- Participants must be able to legally form a company in the UK no later than April 2025 (this cannot be done on a study Visa).
- All participants must be at least 18 years of age.
- If you already have an idea, the product must typically be at pre-trading stage, or not yet trading at time of applying. Exemptions will be made at the discretion of the Ingenuity Impact Team for early-stage business ideas that have not yet received any significant funding from other programmes, competitions or investors.
- Ingenuity Impact is not open to businesses who have already received significant investment, assigned equity, or significant grants and awards previously. Any funding you have already received for your business idea must be declared at time of applying and the business submission stage of the Ingenuity Impact. Any funding you receive during the Ingenuity Impact must also be declared.
Registration criteria
- All participants can only submit one registration form.
- You can register for one primary challenge.
- You will be able to access resources, keynotes and insights related to the other challenges, but you must choose one challenge.
- Incomplete registration forms will not be considered.
- All registration forms must be submitted by midnight (GMT) on Friday 31 January 2025.
- Late entries will typically not be considered.
Eligibility criteria
- Participants will only be considered if they submit an outline business plan, and a pre-recorded video pitch by Sunday 13 April 2025. Late entries will not typically be considered.
- Ideas and business plans must be owned by the participant submitting it.
- Ideas and business plans must be related to one of the three challenges.
Judging criteria
- Your pitch will be assessed by a panel of experts.
- Each pitch will be weighted equally and scored from the Ingenuity Impact judging criteria.
- You will be relevant feedback for your pitch following the assessment.
- Decisions will be final and no appeals will be accepted.
- All judges will sign a confidentiality agreement.
National Finals
Eligibility criteria
- Only participants who are invited to the National Finals will be able to attend.
- If Finalists are unable to attend the pitch event another team will be invited to replace them.
Ingenuity Impact Grants and Investments
- All monies will be paid into a UK bank account typically held in the name of a registered business. This must be set up by 30 June 2025 at the very latest.
- All monies will be paid against agreed milestones. Reporting will be expected against this funding, including impact measurements.
- Recipients of funding must reference the support of Ingenuity Impact on their website, and relevant communications, for a period of at least two years. Or in such situation where Ingenuity Impact no longer wants association with an entity, Ingenuity Impact shall be removed.
- Ingenuity Impact reserves the right to withdraw, amend, or not award the published awards.
General Terms
- Ingenuity Impact reserves the right to withdraw any entry at any stage of the 2024-25 programme that is found to be in breach of any of the pre-established conditions and/or rules laid out on this page.
- Ingenuity Impact reserves the right to move any events or activity online, or cancel them entirely, as determined by government guidance on public health.
- In the event of ideas being passed off or used dishonestly related participants will be disqualified from the 2024-25 and all subsequent programmes of Ingenuity Impact.
- The judges’ decision is final at each assessment stage and no correspondence will be entered into. Each stage of assessment will consist of a minimum of one independent judge. Feedback will be provided at each submission stage.
- Any use of – or reference to – Ingenuity Impact needs to be approved by the Director of Ingenuity Impact in writing. Ingenuity Impact reserves the right to change or amend the individuals on the judging panels and external partners/companies participating in any stage of the programme.
- Ingenuity Impact accepts no responsibility for any intellectual property rights infringements (including issues related to third party copyright, design rights, patents, trademarks or trade names) and the revelation of business ideas, processes or products attained during the programme. All judges and Ingenuity Impact staff involved in the programme will be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement to make sure Ingenuity Impact does its best to protect the businesses involved.
- Ingenuity Impact and Ingenuity contributors (mentors, speakers, assessors, judges, panel members, the Ingenuity Impact team and partner organisations) have no personal or organisational liability for their decisions, views, assumptions or advice given while engaging in the Ingenuity Impact Programme. This includes any business advice and guidance given during drop-in sessions, 1-2-1 mentoring sessions, resources on the Ingenuity Skills Hub or feedback during pitch rounds.
- No responsibility can be accepted for submissions not received before the deadline nor for entries that are lost, mislaid, incomplete or illegible.
- Ingenuity Impact reserves the right to update or amend these terms and conditions without prior notice at any time, and we will notify participants within 28 days of any amendments.
- Ingenuity Impact reserve the right to amend the assessment or judging structure for any of the stages throughout the programme at any time and this will be published no later than seven days before they take effect.
- Ingenuity Impact reserve the right to change the prize fund amount and nature of the prizes available at any time.
- Participants will be responsible for any costs incurred in the process of the programme unless otherwise agreed with Ingenuity Impact or its partners.
- Any personal data relating to any participants will be used solely in accordance with Ingenuity Impact’s privacy notice and will not be shared without the participant’s prior consent. You will be asked to opt-in to have your relevant personal data shared with your college/university/organisation when needed during the programme.
- By entering the Ingenuity Impact, participants are indicating their agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions.
